Never one to rest on its laurels, SEAT will be expanding its recently-launched Ibiza line-up at the forthcoming Paris Motor Show, with the unveiling of the fire-breathing Cupra and ultra-green Ecomotive models.

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Smart currently has an electric version of its little ForTwo runabout... um, running about in Europe known as the Smart ed. Using a a sodium-nickel-chloride (commonly called a Zebra) battery, the 41 horse electric motor has plenty of power to move the vehicle around, and urban performance is actually said to be improved over the standard model.

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Mercedes shocked the motoring press when it announced back in the early 2000's that it would actually launch a production version of its crazy smart Crossblade. Equipped with the same turbocharged three cylinder engine as the regular smart fortwo was offered with, what really distinguished the Crossblade from a run-of-the-mill smart was what it was missing. Gone was the roof and normal doors, along with most of the windshield.

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Gajillionaire Donald Trump wants to spend £1 billion ($2,005,048,751.80) building the world's largest golf resort. It would feature two golf courses along with a 5-star hotel on 1,400 acres of "spectacular sand dunes" at Balmedie Beach in northeast Scotland. Not surprisingly, there is some amount of environmental criticism of the plan.

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"Wide-body" is a relative term. An SUV or a supercar decked out with a wide-body kit? Pimpin'. But a smart ForTwo? Well, it's wider, sure.

Koenigseder is known for modifying big SUVs, but with this kit it's gone decidedly smaller. The Austrian tuning house's package for the diminutive Smart car widens the body by over an inch, which we're not sure is so Smart for a vehicle designed to park sideways in tight spots. The kit also includes 17" rims, which look positively monstrous on such a tiny car, plus Eibach springs, an aero kit, some subtle floral decals and even environmentally-friendly floor mats. Check the action out in the gallery by clicking the thumbnails below.

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The speed of growth in the Chinese auto market is difficult to comprehend because the scale of it is beyond anything known in Europe or North America, especially coupled with China’s record economic growth. To capitalize on the growing automobile craze in China, Daimler is sending its smart fortwo over, with sales to start by mid-2009.

Just officially launched this year in the U.S., the smart fortwo has been racking up awards and praise for several years in Europe. Seen as a good balance between utility and efficiency, the low-CO2 emitting fortwo is a very handy car to have in big cities, thanks to its small footprint and good visibility.

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Carbonyte UK, creator of the world’s first Ferrari ‘limousine’ has unveiled its latest canny conversion – the world’s only stretched Smart Car, the Carbonyte Smaaart.

The Carbonyte team, led by MD and ex-McLaren man Chris Wright, took a Mercedes Benz Smart Fortwo and stretched its chassis by 2700mm, to create a 17 feet vehicle (5100 mm). Despite growing to over twice its normal length (2695mm), the Smaaart’s new lightweight alloy chassis allows the vehicle to be powered by its original 600cc engine and still comfortably reach motorway speeds of 80mph. In all, the build process took just 300 man hours over four weeks from the initial chassis cut to the final paintwork.

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Smart’s Fortwo minicar received top marks in a U.S. government side-impact crash test, despite the car’s driver-side door opening during the simulation.

The Fortwo scored five out of five stars for side impact crashes, while earning four stars for drivers and three starts for passengers during head-on impacts. While the problem of the opening door wasn’t enough to mar the perfect rating for Smart, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did note, “A door opening during a side impact crash increases the likelihood of occupant ejection.”

Smart has been selling the Fortwo about as fast as they can bring them into the country, with the American public seeming more and more receptive to small, fuel efficient vehicles. Roger Penske of the Penske Automotive Group recently said that he could sell as many as 15,000 more units than the 25,000 Fortwos he has been allocated for this year.

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Aznom’s smart creation is out to tender, or so they say. The smart Aznom Tender to Track has all the right ingredients to change a man’s mind about how feminine smart is as a car and a brand. Aznom, for the sharp eye, is Monza splled backwards, the name associated with a famous Italian race track on which dreams have been created and lost over countless years.

Now the partnership with Autodromo Nazionale di Monza has resulted in this Aznom smart, quite sporty and exclusive in its layout. Interior is laden with carbon-fiber detailing that blends in with the alcantara and leather interior. Master Rossano Brambilla is responsible of the carbon inlets that skillfully wrap around such items as the round old school clock.

Leather seats not found on the standard car feature as comfort creatures as they blend with alcantara seat interior to create a luxurious yet sporty living environment. Even the steering wheel cannot escape the alcantara/ carbon-fiber/ leather trinity, and ends up taking all three. It works though. All ten cars being dressed this way will look the same, the only difference being their serial numbers, which are hard to find unless you have binocular eyes.

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The Smart brand has just been launched in the U.S. and with preorder sales already beating expectations Mercedes officials think it’s time to bring back the ForFour. The original model was quickly dropped from the Smart lineup following lackluster sales but with carmakers around the world desperate to launch new eco-friendly models we’re likely to see Mercedes launch a second-generation version of the car in the not too distant future.

Speaking with reporters from Germany’s DPA at last month’s Detroit Auto Show, Smart COO Rainer Schmückle said planners were still deciding on what the new model should look like and whether it should be badged as a Smart or a Mercedes-Benz.

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Smart’s two-seat fortwo seems too cute to be real–but this week, smart will deliver the first of the Benz-developed city cars to customers who signed up long ago on its Web site. Smart marketing chief Dave Schembri, making a guest stop at the Daimler AG press conference, told audiences that the smart had garnered huge interest on the Internet in advance of U.S. sales of the passion coupe and cabriolet models...

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Coventry City Council takes delivery of an early Christmas present this year, in the form of a fully electric smart. The iconic car is the first of 100 cars to be delivered as part of a UK-based market trial for the introduction of a fully electric version of the popular two-seater...

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Ready for some more on the 1.1-liter Shuanghuan Bubble, the car also known as the Shuanghuan Noble Automotive News Europe's Luca Ciferri went to see the Bubble at the Bologna auto show and says that even though Martin Motors violated a court injunction by showing the car there, they did the right thing...

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The Fortwo has that unmistakable Bond-gadget look. You think it’s small, but every time I came back to the Smart after parking it, I thought to myself, “Whoa, it’s even smaller than I remembered.” But it looks cool, a spacey ovoid bubble atop tiny wheels...

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With all the hype surrounding the imminent sale of smart fortwos beginning next month here in the U.S., we overlooked a line on the smart's website that may hint at some hotted-up versions of the diminutive coupe...

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